"Suad had feared for so long that she would die. A mother in Falluja, Iraq, her city has been at the center of war for more than a dozen years and now it is the epicenter of a battle between ISIS and Iraqi and Kurdish forces backed by the United States-led coalition. The coalition's push to take Falluja from ISIS, which began late Sunday, prompted ISIS gunmen to go door to door in the city and yank men, their wives and children from their homes. ... Hundreds of people like Suad and her family have fled the city and its surroundings since the Falluja offensive began last week. More than 500 families have arrived in displacement camps outside the city, the Norwegian Refugee Council said, including almost 300 since Sunday afternoon alone." (05/30/16)

"In a televised address on Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced that, 'In the early hours of the morning today, the heroic fighters advanced from different sides' under the directive to recapture 'all the areas occupied by (the Islamic State) around Falluja.' Fallujah, about 30 miles west of Baghdad, has a recent history of heavy combat. The city served as the backdrop for two major American assaults in 2004 during the American Iraq War -- assaults where US troops saw some of the fiercest fighting since the Vietnam war. In January 2014 Fallujah was taken by anti-government fighters and established as a stronghold for the Islamic State." (05/23/16)

"At least 40 people, most of them army recruits, have been killed in two bomb attacks claimed by so-called Islamic State (IS) in the Yemeni city of Aden. In the first, a suicide bomber targeted young men queuing to enlist at the home of a senior army commander. Shortly afterwards there was a second blast at a nearby army base. Aden is serving as the temporary home of [a puppet regime set up by Saudi invaders] while it seeks to regain control of the capital, Sanaa, from the Houthi rebel [sic] movement." (05/23/16)

"The U.S.-led coalition killed a mid-level Islamic State militant group (ISIS) fighter named 'Desert Lion,' who became notorious for his brutality, in an air strike in Iraq, the Pentagon said on Monday. The Pentagon confirmed that an air strike killed Shaker Wahib in Iraq’s western Anbar province alongside three fellow militants on Friday." (05/10/16)

"Militants opened fire on a microbus filled with plainclothes police in a Cairo suburb early Sunday, killing eight of them, including an officer, in an attack claimed by a local Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) affiliate. The attack was the deadliest in the heavily policed capital since November, when gunmen attacked a security checkpoint, killing four policemen. That attack was also claimed by the local ISIS affiliate. Egypt's state-run MENA news agency said the policemen were inspecting security in the south Cairo suburb of Helwan early Sunday when four gunmen in a pickup opened fire on them." (05/08/16)

"Kenya's police chief says the country's security services have foiled a potentially major terror plot by an unnamed East African terror network with links to ISIS. The terror plot was aimed at 'various targets in Kenya,' Inspector General Joseph Boinnet said Tuesday. Police in Kenya and Uganda have so far arrested three individuals: one, a medical student named Mohammed Abdi Ali who was interning at a Kenyan hospital, and the others -- Ali's wife and her friend -- who are now in custody in Uganda. Ali was arrested on Friday." (05/04/16)

"A U.S. Navy SEAL was killed in Iraq as a result of a 'coordinated and complex attack' by roughly 100 ISIS fighters nearly 30 kilometers north of Mosul, Pentagon officials confirmed Tuesday. ISIS used multiple vehicles, suicide car bombs and bulldozers to break through a checkpoint at the front line and drive 3 to 5 kilometers to the Peshmerga base where SEALs are temporarily visiting and were located as advisers, a U.S. defense official told CNN. The gun battle was around the town of Telskof in northern Iraq, the official added." [editor's note: I guess they think they can re-cycle the "advisers" fiction now that it's been half a century since it last fell apart - TLK] (05/03/16)

"Singapore has arrested eight Bangladeshi immigrants in the past month for allegedly planning terrorist attacks in their home country, officials from the Singaporean Ministry of Home Affairs said on Tuesday. The suspects were all employed in the marine or construction industries and have been detained under the city-state’s Internal Security Act, according to Channel News Asia. One of the men, 31-year-old Rahman Mizanur, had reportedly set up a group called Islamic State in Bangladesh (ISB) a month ago, whose aim was to violently depose the Bangladeshi government and establish an ISIS-affiliated caliphate there." (05/03/16)

"ISIS hackers have published a 'hitlist' of over 70 US military personnel who have been involved in drone strikes against terror targets in Syria and asked their followers to 'kill them wherever they are.' According to 'The Sunday Times,' the hackers have links with Britain and call themselves 'Islamic State Hacking Division' and circulated online the names, home addresses and photographs of more than 70 US staff, including women and urged supporters: 'Kill them wherever they are, knock on their doors and behead them, stab them, shoot them in the face or bomb them.'" (05/02/16)

"An explosives-laden car detonated on Monday in the Iraqi capital, killing at least 18 Shiite pilgrims who were commemorating the anniversary of the death of a revered imam, officials said. Shortly after the explosion, the Sunni extremist Islamic State group, which sees Shiite Muslims as apostates, claimed responsibility for the attack in an online statement. It said the assault was carried out by a suicide bomber, but Iraqi officials denied that." (05/02/16)

"The United States and its allies conducted 23 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq on Tuesday, the coalition leading the operations said in a statement on its latest round of daily strikes against the militant group. The strikes were concentrated near Falluja, Mosul, Qayyarah and Tal Afar, the Combined Joint Task Force said in the statement released on Wednesday." (04/27/16)

"Since its creation in 2009, US Cyber Command has focused its efforts mostly on sophisticated cyber-actors on the world stage, states like Iran, Russia, and North Korea. It acts mostly in the new realm of cyber-conflict, in which states can take digital shots at one another without getting too worried about starting a real shooting war. But now, the American war on ISIS is blurring the lines between digital and kinetic conflict, opening a new cyber-front in the physical world: For the first time in its short history, the US military's Cyber Command will now run its own aggressive operations as part of the War on Terror, and even augment regular, lethal military strikes with cyber capabilities." [editor's note: The idea that the US military hasn't previously engaged in cyber warfare is hilarious; openly admitting it is the only thing that's new - TLK] (04/26/16)

"A university professor on his way to work in northwestern Bangladesh was hacked to death Saturday in an attack similar to other killings by suspected Muslim militants, police said. A.F.M. Rezaul Karim Siddique was attacked on his way to the state-run university in the city of Rajshahi, where he taught English, deputy police commissioner Nahidul Islam said. The attackers used sharp weapons and fled the scene immediately, Islam said.
The attack was similar to recent killings of atheist bloggers in Muslim-majority Bangladesh by radical Islamists. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, accusing Siddique of calling for atheism, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi websites." (04/23/16)

"In 2003, David Petraeus, then a division commander in Iraq, famously asked 'tell me how this ends?' in reference to the conflict just starting there. It was a good question then, and it's a good question now. The war against the Islamic State gets a lot of attention, much of it focused on the immediate: Is the war going better or worse this month than last month? Is the Islamic State gaining ground or losing it? Are U.S. air strikes killing more Islamic State leaders or fewer? But these things only matter if they contribute to an ultimate end to the conflict on terms the United States can live with. Will they? In fact, we have a lot of evidence on wars like this and how they typically end. But it's not a very encouraging story." (04/20/16)

"Belgium has charged two more men with terrorist offences linked to last month's bombings in Brussels and also searched a house related to the attacks in Paris, detaining three people, federal prosecutors said on Tuesday." (04/12/16)

"The U.N. special envoy on Monday urged Syria's warring sides to preserve the fragile U.S.-Russia-brokered cease-fire ahead of the next round of peace talks in Geneva this week. The plea by Staffan de Mistura, who spoke after meeting Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem in Damascus, came as Islamic State fighters retook a northern town [al-Rai] along the border with Turkey from Syrian rebels and government forces and rebels clashed across northern and western Syria." (04/11/16)

"In a brazen assault near the Syrian capital, Islamic State militants on Thursday abducted 300 cement workers and contractors in an area northeast of Damascus, Syrian state TV reported as fighting elsewhere in the country also worsened. ... State TV said Thursday’s mass abduction of workers from the al-Badia Cement Company took place in Dumeir, an area where militants launched a surprise attack against government forces earlier this week. State-run news agency SANA quoted a source in the company as saying that there has been no success in efforts to establish contact with any of the workers." (04/07/16)

"Police in Russia's volatile North Caucasus said Wednesday that one person was killed and two more injured in a bomb attack targeting on a police convoy. Fatina Ubaydatova, police spokeswoman in the restive region of Dagestan, said Wednesday that the convoy hit a bomb on the road outside the regional capital of Makhachkala on Tuesday evening. The convoy was ferrying federal police forces to the region. Police are sent to Dagestan on a regular basis." (03/30/16)

"The U.S. military has ordered military family members to evacuate southern Turkey, primarily from Incirlik Air Base, due to security concerns, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Family members will also be evacuated from facilities in Izmir and Mugla, according to a Pentagon statement." (03/29/16)

"The latest Western 'victories' over the Islamic State -- the U.S. killing of the number two man in the heinous group and the Russian supported retaking of the ancient town of Palmyra, Syria by the Syrian government -- should not mask the long-term difficulties of eradicating the Islamist insurgency. Examining these two 'achievements' may, however, tell us what is likely to work and what is not." (03/29/16)

"The story of the 200 US Marines at Makhmour and the flight of the 15th Division illustrates more than just the fragility of the Iraqi armed forces. It underlines the degree to which the US already has combat troops in Iraq, while all the while claiming that there are no 'boots on the ground.' Sergeant Cardin was not officially even in Iraq when he died because he was one of 1,470 US service personnel only temporarily in the country. Taken together with the 3,870 officially there and 1,100 contractors working for the Pentagon in Iraq who are US citizens this brings the total to over 6,400." (03/28/16)

"ISIS now becomes a new official enemy, replacing al Qaeda, the organization consisting of former extremist Muslims who the U.S. national-security state was partnering with in Afghanistan when it was the Soviets doing the occupying of that country. We're now told that ISIS is the greatest threat to 'national security' ever. ... So, they keep killing and killing and killing, this time in the name of killing ISIS, the latest new official enemy. ISIS then responds with a terrorist attack on people in France, another colonialist power who won't leave people in the Middle East alone, especially in the former French colony of Syria. Belgium arrests one of the terrorists who committed the attacks in France. ISIS bombs innocent people in Belgium. Belgian, French, and U.S. officials exclaim, 'They just hate us all for our freedom and values,' acting as though the ongoing U.S. death machine in the Middle East has nothing to do with this never-ending, perpetual cycle of death and destruction." (03/23/16)

"More explosive devices reportedly were turned up Tuesday as police raided homes throughout Belgium in a desperate manhunt for a third suspect believed to have survived the morning's coordinated bombings in Brussels, where at least 34 people were killed. Included in the haul were several unexploded devices, NBC reported. CBS reported two more devices had been found. ... The flurry of law enforcement activity came after a channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram that is maintained by [the Islamic State] described the operation and took credit for the carnage." (03/22/16)

"Top Islamic State commander and feared Chechen jihadi fighter Omar Shishani has died of wounds suffered in a U.S. airstrike in Syria last week, a senior Iraqi intelligence official and the head of a Syrian activist group said Tuesday. Shishani died Monday outside the Islamic State group's main stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, the two told the Associated Press. The red-bearded ethnic Chechen was one of the most prominent Islamic State commanders, serving as the group's military commander for the territory it controls in Syria." (03/15/16)

"Tens of thousands of documents, containing names, addresses, telephone numbers and family contacts of Islamic State jihadis, have been obtained by Sky News. Nationals from at least 51 countries, including the UK, had to give up their most personal information as they joined the terror organisation. Only when the 23-question form was filled in were they inducted into IS. ... The files were passed to Sky News on a memory stick stolen from the head of Islamic State's internal security police, an organisation described by insiders as the group's SS. The man who stole it was a former Free Syrian Army convert to Islamic State who calls himself Abu Hamed. Disillusioned with the Islamic State leadership, he says it has now been taken over by former soldiers from the Iraqi Baath party of Saddam Hussein." (03/10/16)